I. Scotus's view
IS A VIRTUE AN ACTIVE PRINCIPLE OF AN ACT'S MORAL GOODNESS?
59 Furthermore, in Ethics II [1105b7–9] the Philosopher says that "although someone who does not possess justice can do just acts, he cannot do them justly." And the same applies to other acts. But moral goodness requires acting justly or courageously.
Therefore, virtue is a principle of an act qua good in such a way that an act cannot be good without it.
60 But one can argue for the opposite of this conclusion on the basis of the fact that moral goodness in an act indicates nothing other than a relation. For an act's being characterized by appropriate circumstances is not something absolute in the act, but simply the appropriate relation of the act to those features that ought to characterize it. Therefore, an act's being characterized by appropriate circumstances, just like any other relation, has no active principle of its own.
61 Moreover, if a habit qua virtue were an active principle of moral goodness in an act, then given that a habit is a virtue only by way of a relation—namely, only through its conformity with prudence (for a virtue is "a habit concerned with choice of the mean as determined by right reason"2)—it follows that some relational characteristic in a virtue would be an active principle, which is impossible.
I. Scotus's view 62 Concerning this topic, it can be said that just as beauty is not some absolute quality in the beautiful body, but rather is the aggregation of all the features that are suitable to such a body (for example, size, shape, and color) and the aggregation as well of all the relations of those features to the body and to each other, so too the moral goodness of an act is in effect a certain comeliness in that act, comprising the aggregation of the appropriate proportion to all the features to which the act ought to be proportionate
(for example, the power, the object, the end, the time, the place, and the manner of acting), and in particular as right reason dictates that these features ought to characterize the act—so much so that we can say that the suitability of an act to right reason is, more than any other feature, the feature whose presence makes an act good and whose absence makes an act bad, no matter what other suitable features might characterize the act. For whatever the act may be, and whatever sort of object it might have, if it does not accord with right reason in the agent (for example, if the agent does not have right reason in acting), the act is not good. Therefore, the moral goodness of an act is principally the act's conformity with right reason when right reason gives a complete dictate concerning all the circumstances that are appropriate for that act.
63 Now this goodness has no active principle of its own, just as no relation has an active principle of its own, and especially because this relation3 follows in virtue of the nature of the extremes once those extremes are given. For if an act is actually
2 Cf. Aristotle, Nic. Eth. II.5, 1106b36–1107a2.
3 That is, moral goodness.
ORDINATIO I, D. , PART , QQ. –, NN. –, –
performed and right reason is actually present in acting, it is impossible, in virtue of the nature of those extremes, for conformity with right reason not to follow. Now a relation that necessarily follows from its extremes does not have a cause of its own, distinct from the cause of the extremes.
Therefore, there is no need for any habit to have the character of an active principle of this accidental feature of the act, its moral goodness, except insofar as it has the character of an active principle with respect to the substance of the act that is apt to conform to a complete dictate of prudence. And some habit inclines to that act in itself in virtue of the nature of a habit, and as a consequence it inclines to an act that conforms to right reason if right reason is present in the agent.
What we should say about the habit is in keeping with what we said about the moral goodness of an act: a moral virtue adds nothing over and above the substance of the habit, as a form in the category of quality, besides habitual conformity to right reason.
For suppose there is a habit generated from acts of abstinence elicited with erroneous reason in the agent: if that very same habit in nature remains once the agent's reason is right, it would then be the virtue of abstinence, whereas before, as long as right reason with respect to abstinence was lacking, it was not a virtuous habit. And yet nothing about that habit in itself has undergone change; it's just that now the habit is conjoined with prudence, whereas before it wasn't.
Therefore, being conjoined with prudence confers the status of virtue on a habit as a form in the genus of quality when that habit is by its nature apt to be conformed to prudence. And thus a habit that is a moral virtue indicates nothing in absolute entity distinct from that same habit in nature that is not a virtue if it is apart from prudence.
Consequently, that habit cannot have any causality as a virtue other than what it has as a natural quality of that sort, unless the habit-as-conjoined-with-prudence is apt to be a secondary cause, as directed by prudence, with respect to the effect that is common to both.4 But the habit-as-apart-from-prudence cannot be a secondary cause with respect to that same effect, in much the same way that sight in a madman cannot be a free power by participation, because the madman cannot have the use of his will, which is a free power essentially, whereas a sane person has the use of sight as a power free by participation and as a secondary cause with respect to the will. But still, when the habit is a secondary cause with respect to prudence, it has a causality of its own, suited to it in its own order of causing, precisely in virtue of its being the sort of form or quality that it is in nature, and not in virtue of its relation of conformity, or being conjoined, with prudence. For although a secondary cause conjoined with a primary cause acts differently from how it acts apart from the primary cause, it has no active power of its own in virtue of being thus conjoined; rather, [it has whatever causality it has] in virtue of its own absolute nature.
4 That is, moral goodness.
IS A VIRTUE AN ACTIVE PRINCIPLE OF AN ACT'S MORAL GOODNESS?
67 Therefore, we cannot identify any special characteristic on the basis of which a virtue as virtue is the principle of an act as morally good—neither on the part of the act insofar as it is morally good [n. 64] nor on the part of the habit insofar as it is a moral virtue [n. 66]—other than that which the habit and the act have in virtue of their natures.
. . .
92 To the arguments brought forward for the affirmative answer to this question,5 which appear to show that a moral habit qua virtue is an active principle of an act qua moral, I reply that moral goodness in an act, as I said above [n. 62], is the completeness of all [suitable] conditions and circumstances, and particularly as right reason dictates that those conditions ought to be present in the act. Therefore, it is unqualifiedly necessary for the moral goodness of an act that a complete dictate of right reason precede it and that the act be conformed to that dictate as what is measured to its measure.
93 But it need not be the case that that dictate be from any intellectual habit—say, prudence—or that the act conforming to the dictate be elicited from any appetitive moral habit. For a correct dictate unqualifiedly precedes prudence, since the first degree of prudence is generated through a correct dictate; and in the same way, a correct choice unqualifiedly precedes a moral habit, since the first degree of moral virtue is generated through a correct choice. So in the first act someone both dictates rightly without prudence's having been generated and chooses morally rightly without a moral virtue's having been generated. Yet once prudence has been generated by this first act or by a number of other correct dictates, it inclines more to eliciting similar dictates, that is, to drawing correct conclusions of practical syllogisms concerning all the circumstances that ought to be present in the act that is to be elicited. Similarly, once a moral virtue has been generated after the first act, it inclines more to eliciting acts similar to the acts through which it was generated.
94 Nevertheless, one must understand that the element of moral virtue that is generated6 is a quality, and conformity to prudence is not essential to that quality as such.
For that very same quality could be generated by similar acts of the same species elicited apart from prudence (indeed, with erroneous reason, if such reason were present); and the quality that is generated from these acts is not, according to its natural species, a virtue simply because it is this quality. Rather, the conformity of that quality with prudence—or, to speak more explicitly, its coexistence with prudence in one and the same agent—is still necessarily required. For indeed, whether prudence is present or not, that habit is always apt to be in conformity with prudence
5 "for the affirmative answer to this question" is literally "for the fifth way," but the first four "ways" do not appear in this excerpt.
6 "the element of moral virtue that is generated" translates illud quod generatur de virtute morali. Less literally, but perhaps also less misleadingly: "what is generated when moral virtue is generated."
ORDINATIO I, D. , PART , QQ. –, NN. –, –
if prudence were present. (Thus, a habit of abstinence generated by acts done on the basis of erroneous reason is always apt, so far as that habit itself is concerned, to be in conformity with prudence, even if prudence is not present—in a way that another habit generated by excessive acts is not apt to be in conformity with prudence.)
So when a quality that is apt to be in conformity with prudence coexists with prudence, it has not only aptitudinal but actual conformity with prudence, since both habits incline to similar acts; and an act elicited in accordance with the inclination of these two habits is morally good. If the act were elicited only in accordance with the inclination of the quality that is materially a moral virtue, without prudence coexisting in the same agent or inclining to that act, the act would not be morally good.
In this way, then, it is evident that this quality, which is materially a moral virtue (and which fully has the character of moral virtue through coexisting with prudence) is related to prudence, when prudence is present, as a secondary cause to a primary cause with respect to the common effect that they elicit. For when that quality coexists with prudence, prudence is in effect the prior cause and the moral habit in effect the posterior cause. Now these two causes, concurring at the same time in eliciting the act, can bestow moral goodness on the act, which the secondary habit could not bestow by itself, if it were apart from prudence or right reason. Indeed, to bestow moral goodness just is to bestow conformity with right reason; and this quality bestows such conformity not simply because it is this quality, but because in causing the act it coexists with prudence, which simultaneously inclines to that act.
It is therefore evident that the quality that is a virtue has no special causality qua virtue with respect to moral goodness in an act; rather, qua virtue it has coexistence with another cause of the same act, and that cause, in simultaneously concurring in eliciting the act, bestows moral goodness on the act because it bestows conformity with itself. But even then that habit has no causality with respect to the act in virtue of its coexistence with prudence, but only in virtue of its nature as this quality; and thus one should not grant that that habit has any special causality in virtue of being moral, over and above the causality that it has in virtue of being this habit.
And one should also note that this goodness, as it is attributed to prudence inclining in this way (as I said at the outset [nn. 92–3]), does not necessarily or exclusively belong to the habit of prudence; rather, it belongs to an act that is apt to be an act of prudence, which is a correct dictate. For if a correct dictate is present and the appetite desires in accordance with it (as in accordance with its measure), the act is morally right; and if that right dictate were not present, but prudence were present (such that the intellect would be able to dictate rightly in accordance with prudence), the act elicited without a correct dictate would not be perfectly good. And so when prudence is not present, an act that is a correct dictate is sufficient to dictate a correct act; by contrast, when prudence is present, it is not sufficient without its elicited act, and thus the rectitude that prudence bestows on a moral act is bestowed through the proper act of prudence.